Going Beyond Linear: Reflections with Valerie Jarrett

In a fireside chat with Ms. Jaqueline Welch, Ms. Valerie Jarrett, Senior Advisor to President Barack Obama, shared life stories that influenced her path, shaped her career, and guided her perspective for the future. With messages around “listening to your voice” and “going beyond the linear,” Ms. Jarrett encouraged the audience to find commonality, take risks, and influence change. She provided sage advice for CHROs to use their voice to make a positive impact within their organizational cultures.

Finding commonality through diversity: Ms. Jarrett noted that being born in Iran and later moving to London and then the U.S. had a profound impact on her views of people and cultures. From an early age, she experienced culture shock leading her “to understand the richness of diversity” and “appreciate the U.S.” after seeing third world countries and the impact of disease. These experiences allowed her to feel she could “find something in common with anyone” and she was always interested in finding out what that something was.

Listening to your voice. Working for a Chicago law firm as a single mother proved to be a very difficult experience, Ms. Jarrett recalled. She spoke about “trying to have it all at the same time” in balancing her career as an attorney and being a mother and expressed fear that talking about being pregnant or being a mother would diminish the seriousness of her as a professional. Through this time, Ms. Jarrett talked about how she had to listen closely to her inner voice to be able to make the decision to leave the law firm and start a new path.

Taking risks: Ms. Jarrett reflected on the significance of taking the risk to move into Chicago politics and how this continued to shape her experiences, including meeting Michelle and Barack Obama. From her own personal situation as a working mother, she acknowledged that “taking risks was easier to do with a safety net” like she was fortunate to have. In politics, she focused on how she could change policies to assist working families who do not have this safety net.

Influencing change: Serving as an advisor to the former President, and leadership positions for numerous boards, Ms. Jarret told stories about how she used her voice to make connections, shape an inclusive culture, propel teams from having “the best players to the best team” and influence people in positions of power.  She spoke directly to CHROs to acknowledge the difficult and important role they had as “eyes and ears” of a culture and using their voice with the CEO and leaders to influence change.